


Little Promises

by CaptainKirby



Category: Original Work
Genre: Feels, Feels in space, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Outer Space, Promises, Stupid Hats, Who needs sleep anyways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-09-26 14:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9907631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainKirby/pseuds/CaptainKirby
Summary: Astronauts go into outer space for many reasons. To do science. To go somewhere few people have been before. To experience zero gravity. But two of the members of the new International Space Station team are going up for a different kind of reason. They both have little promises to keep.





	1. More Than Just A Silly Hat

It was the day before launch, and three of the astronauts had nothing to do. Erica, James and Garret sat in a break room at the Johnson Space Center, each with a cup of beer in front of them. Normally, people don’t bring alcohol inside, because it’s hard to do science when you’re drunk, but the astronauts wanted to relax on their last day before they left the planet.

Erica, James, and Garret started drumming on the table. A grin slowly spread across each of their faces. They hadn’t played this game since they were in college.

“What’s the name of the game?” Garret asked.

“Thumper!” Erica and James replied.

“And why do we play it?”

“To get fucked up!” They all shouted in unison. After that, everyone stopped drumming and looked to Garret, who bit his thumb, and then pumped his fist in the air. Erica recognized that this was her assigned gesture that she had used in games of thumper since she could drink. She pumped her fist in the air and then tipped an invisible hat to pass the game to James. The three astronauts continued making random gestures like a bunch of buzzed university students wasting time on a Friday night, until the leader of the mission, Trent, walked into the break room.

“What are you doing?” Trent asked. James and Erica looked over at Trent to see him dressed in his normal polo shirt and jeans, and wearing a conspicuous cowboy hat. While James wasn’t paying attention, Garret pretended to tip his hat.

“We’re playing thumper.” James replied.

“James, you messed up.” Garret said.

 “Oh… crap.” James replied as he downed his beer.

“A game? Don’t you have work to do?” Trent asked.

“Yeah… well we wanted to take a small break. It’s nice to get our mind off the launch happening tomorrow.” Garret said.

“And it’s not like we have much to do. All the preparations on our side are done.” Erica added.

Trent still looked confused, “Are you saying you’re nervous? We’ve been training for this for years. We’re astronauts. This is kind of what we live for.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t be nervous. We’re going to be shot out of the atmosphere at 30,000 kilometers per hour.” Erica replied.

“So you’re playing… a drinking game?”

“As I said, it’s called thumper.” James said.

“Never heard of it.” Trent replied.

“Take a seat and we’ll explain it to you.” Erica said as she waved Trent over. Trent furrowed his eyebrows at his fellow astronauts. But he sat down anyways.

“The rules are real simple: you have to create a gesture. We start with some performing their gesture, and then a different persons’ gesture. Then that person does their gesture and then someone else’s and so on until someone messes up.” Erica explained.

“We’ll have you start this round so you can show us your gesture.” Garret said.

Trent nodded, and then thought for a little bit. He decided on pretending to lasso someone with an invisible rope, an appropriate choice given his hat. Trent followed up his lasso with tipping his hat.

“Speaking of hats.” James said as he passed the turn over to Erica, “why are you wearing a cowboy hat around? This is NASA, not a rodeo.”

“I needed to get approval to bring it with us.” Trent replied.

“You’re bringing a cowboy hat into space?” Erica asked.

“Yeah. What about it?”

“We’re already bringing a bunch of stuff up. Do we really have space to take up your silly hat?”

“It’s not just a silly hat.”

“Oh really?” Erica’s question was sarcastic, but Trent answered honestly.

“It’s part of a little promise I made”

Erica paused to look at Trent while Garret pumps his fist in the air.

“Erica, you screwed up.” Garret said.

“Hey, can we vote to change Garret’s symbol to this?” Erica flipped off Garret.

“All those in favor say aye!” James said.

Erica and James both gave an enthusiastic “Aye!”

“You two are just jealous because you keep losing.” Garret replied with a smug grin. Erica drank her punishment beer and they started up another round.

“Anyways, aren’t you guys have personal items you’re bringing on board?” Trent asked.

“Yeah, I’m bringing a Rubik’s cube.” Garret replied.

“I’m bringing a sketchbook and some pencils.” James said. “What about you Erica?”

“Oh… I’m not bringing much.”

“Really?” Trent sounded surprised.

“She’s not bringing a personal item because she doesn’t have a personality.”

“Oh, fuck off Garret.” Erica barked back.

“But you’re really not bringing anything?” Trent asked as he pumped his fist in the air. Erica pumped her fist in the air and then tipped her invisible hat.

“I’m bringing some headphones to listen to music. But we’re all bringing that.” She said.

James nodded his head in agreement, “True, I can’t subject myself to ten months straight of Garret’s voice.”

Everyone except Trent laughed.

“Do any of you have the time? I have to meet up with my family for dinner soon. It’ll be my last meal with them for a few months and all.” Trent asked. While Garret checked his watch, Trent took the opportunity to bite his thumb without Garret noticing.

“It’s about 6:30” Garret said.

“Garret! You screwed up!” Erica pointed out excitedly. She and James then high fived. Garret was about to respond, but stopped and watched Trent stand from the table.

“6: 30? I guess that’s my cue to leave. I’ll see you all bright and early tomorrow of course.” The mission leader said as he left the beak room. Erica, James and Garret watched him go in silence.

“Adults are so cool” James said.

“We’re in our thirties.” Erica pointed out.

“But let’s be fair here, none of us quite scale up to Trent in terms of maturity.” Garret replied.

“Wow, I think that’s the most astute thing I’ve ever heard you say!” James joked. Everyone laughed, and then started up another game of thumper. Even though they all laughed and drank, each of the astronauts kept thinking about tomorrow. About how this was the way they decided to spend their last day on Earth. About going into that wonderful place known as the ISS to do what most grade school students dream of.


	2. Fried Eggs Do Not Make Up For Shitty Conversational Skills

Erica woke up to the sound of hardcore dubstep at 5:15 the next morning. She used dubstep for her alarm because she hated it, so it motivated her to get up and turn it off. Just before Erica turned to take a shower and get ready for launch day, she heard her phone buzz. She looked over at it and read the words on the screen: “Don’t forget to call your parents today”.

Shivers shot down Erica’s spine. Her hand started to shake a little. She had forgotten about that. Erica got ready and drover herself down to the Johnson Flight Center. It’d be one of the last times she’d get to drive anywhere. Sadly, she couldn’t enjoy the view, because the sun hadn’t quite come up by 5:45.

When she arrived, Erica could immediately smell something peculiar. The scent of eggs floated through the doors of the NASA building. Erica followed the scent into the break room where she played Thumper the night before. Trent stood in front of a stove cooking scrambled eggs.

“You know, I thought I was going to be the first one here today.” Erica said.

“Morning.” Trent replied.

“What are you doing?”

I’m cooking scrambled eggs. NASA astronauts have eaten them the morning of lift off ever since Alan Shepard went up. Want some?”

“Sure, I guess so.” Erica replied. She took a seat at the table and watched Trent cook for a while. She listened to the sound of yolk bubbles popping on the pan, and fire crackling.

“Hey, Trent?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did you want to become an astronaut?”

Trent looked over his shoulder at Erica. Then he laughed a little.

“I was always a fan of the stars. My dad owned a telescope, but he never used it, so I would borrow it some nights and take it all around. I guess I never really thought ‘I should be an astronaut’, but more like ‘I should be an astronomer’, and that led me here. What about you?”

“I don’t have much of a story.”

“You’re probably underselling yourself.”

Erica glared at Trent, but he didn’t notice. He had eggs to fry.

“Maybe I know I have a story and I just don’t want to tell it” Erica said.

“Story’s you don’t want to tell are like repressed feelings.” Trent replied, “They gnaw at you until you let them out.”

Erica scowled at the table. He was right. She knew it too. That man who just flipped eggs and thought he was carrying out a polite conversation had no clue what kind of pain he was striking at. It didn’t help that he kept his eyes on the frying pan.

“Fine. I ran away from home in high school. My dad wanted me to stay at home and look after his farm, and my mom wanted me to grow up to be an actress. She forced me to audition for Wicked when my school put it on. Of course I didn’t make the cut. So, my only other option was staying home. But I wanted to do something else. I would walk around and night and look up at the stars, and think about how I couldn’t see such a big world. And then one night it hit me. I should go to the stars. So, I ran away from home and lived with my math teacher. I think that what he did might’ve been illegal, but he didn’t care. I traded my family for a life of chasing the stars.”

“Hmm… that’s more of a story than mine.” Trent said. Ge let the eggs sizzle for a while, but he never looked over at Erica. If he did, Trent would’ve seen a contorted mixture of anger and resentment on her face. It’s weird when you resent one of your defining moments. Erica couldn’t stand the silence. She wanted the conversation to move on to something, anything different. She was having enough trouble not thinking about her parents without Trent poking his head where it didn’t belong.

“Did you know that cherry blossom fall around the speed of 5 centimeters a second?” Erica asked.

“No, I did not.”

“My little brother used to tell me that all the time. I don’t know why he thought that was so interesting, but it seems pertinent now.”

“How so?”

“Where we’re going things don’t really ‘fall’. They just kind of float around, you know?”

“Ah, yes.”

And Trent killed the conversation again. Erica grew even more frustrated. Why couldn’t he keep up a half decent conversation? Or maybe it was her fault. Or maybe Trent had something on his mind and he didn’t want to talk. Erica didn’t care what his reason though. She needed to talk, and Trent just left her hanging.

“How are you so nonchalant right now?” she half-yelled at the man cooking her breakfast.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m an engineer, so I study stuff like the rocket that we’re going up in. Aren’t you scared? At all? There are so many points of failure that need to be checked again and again.”

“We’ve launched people before. This is fairly routine.”

“Just because something happened a certain way before doesn’t mean that it’ll happen that way again.”

“I guess I just have confidence.”

“What do you mean?”

 “Well, it’s going to be fine, because I have a little promise I have to keep.”

“That’s not how that works.”

“Haven’t you ever made a little promise before?” Trent asked. He put the eggs on some plates and brought them over to the table with some silverware. He gave one to Erica, and put a plate in front of himself.

“Not like a real promise” Trent continued, “but an entirely absurd one that no one would ever expect you to fulfill?”

Erica thought for a few seconds, “Yeah… I guess I have once.”

“Well, when you’re on the brink of fulfilling a little promise like that, you gotta just believe it’s going to work. Usually Lady Luck brought you there in the first place. All you can do is trust in her again.”

Trent ate his eggs. They looked really good, but Erica didn’t dare take a bite. Instead, she just stared in disbelief at her commander. What he just said sounded so… stupid. That’s not the way the world works. But that obviously didn’t bother Trent, who seemed perfectly content to eat his eggs in blissful ignorance.

“Trent, stop. Just stop. You made us eggs? You’re making the rest of us look bad.” James said as he walked into the break room with Garret in tow.

“You don’t know that he made them. Maybe Erica made them.” Garret replied.

“Can you even picture me cooking?”

“Good point. Trent, you got to give us a chance.”

“Scrambled eggs is a tradition.” Trent said between bites, “Eat up.”

“Whatever you say _dad_.” James replied. He and Garret grabbed plates of eggs and joined Trent.

“Are you going even try yours?” Garret asked Erica, noting her untouched plate.

“Oh, right.” Erica started eating. The eggs tasted as good as they looked.

“Why are _you_ here so early anyways?” James asked Erica.

“I couldn’t sleep.” Erica lied.

“Ah. I know the feeling.” Garret replied, “You just kind of twist and turn in the middle of the night until you decide to just stand up and say ‘screw it! I’m done with this’”

“You don’t know the feeling. You weren’t awake until I called you to make sure you set an alarm!” James pointed out. Erica laughed. This is the kind of distraction she needed. Trent stood from the table with his cleared plate and rinsed it in the sink. He left the break room without a word. But James, Erica and Garret didn’t really notice. Or care. They were more than enough for each other.


	3. In Space, No One Can Hear You Sing. Unless You Want Them To

It was quite the trip into outer space. The rocket rumbled. Fire flew out the bottom like a dragon trying to cook his breakfast, except with more fire. Erica could’ve sworn that she felt the extra G’s of force hours after they had decelerated. Overall, it was exciting as any other rocket launch, and no more dangerous.

The astronauts unloaded their supplies onto the ISS and got used to the microgravity. Erica felt like a child at first, poking tools that floated in the air and watching them glide away. Garret and James passed a set Allen wrenches between them by just tapping the set in the right direction. Trent was the only one who worked with a straight face. No surprise there.

Once everything had finally gotten set up, Erica wandered into the room with the designated “internet computer”. It wasn’t anything special, just an old laptop running an ancient version of Windows, and hooked up to a special cooling system. Trent was messing around with the computer when he noticed Erica. He held his cowboy hat in one hand, and used the keyboard with the other.

“How’s the wifi up here?” Erica asked.         

“Terrible. As expected.” Trent replied without taking his eyes off the screen.

“You finally found time to call home?”

“Yeah. And I see you finally calmed down.”

“Oh, I was fine from the moment we left earth.” Erica peered over Trent’s shoulder, “You can skype your family?”

“It’s not actually Skype, but it’s pretty much the same thing.”

“Well, I guess I should come back later then.” Erica said. She walked toward the next module, but she didn’t leave. She hid herself around the corner to the next section of the ISS and listened to Trent’s called. She didn’t know what held her there. Maybe Erica wanted to know how Trent acted around his family. Maybe she wanted to know what he was doing with that cowboy hat. It was probably a mixture of both.

“Hi guys!” Trent said. He stopped sounding like the commander and more like a dad.

“Hi daddy!” Trent’s son responded. He sounded like he was about six or so.

“Hi Trent.” Trent’s wife said. Her name was Sarah. Erica had met her a few times at various parties and get-togethers.

“What’s it like? It is cool?”

“Yes, Matt. It’s very cool.” Trent answered his son, “Actually, it’s negative 460 degrees outside.”

Erica was shocked. A pun? Erica didn’t know that Trent could utter a pun. And a bad one at that. She thought that his humor must have been on some sort of level of sophistication so cultured that he didn’t even try to be funny around Erica, James and Garret.

“Woah!” Matt responded.

“I see that everything is setting up nicely.” Sarah said.

“Nicely enough.”

“What kind of experiments have you done yet?” Matt asked.

“We haven’t done any experiments yet. We’re getting to that.” Trent responded.

“Daddy, you aren’t going to be up there for too long, will you?”

“I’ll be up here for about half a year.”

“Aw…”

“But don’t worry. We’ll be able to chat like this at least once a week, if not more.”

“Yay!”

“You better call once a week…” Sarah half-threatened. Erica heard Trent laugh. She couldn’t remember the last time she heard him laugh. It wasn’t at one of Garrets jokes, that was for sure.

“Of course. I mean, I’d go insane if I had to take 7 straight months of being stranded up here with Garret.”

Erica could hear a hearty laugh come from the computer.

“Oh, Matt, I have a small present for you before I need to hang up.”

“Really? You have a present for me from all the way up there?”

Then Trent smiled one of those so-big-its-gonna-rip-my-face-in-two smiles. He put on his cowboy hat and tipped it to the laptop camera.

“Look! Your dad is the world’s first space cowboy!”

Matt went silent for a few seconds, and then screamed, “Just like you promised!”

“Yup, just like I promised.”

“Thanks dad!”

“I gotta go now. I’ll call you later.”

 “Bye dad!”                       

“Love you honey.”

“Love you guys.”

Then the video call went dead. But Trent’s smile couldn’t go away. He couldn’t wipe that stupid grin off his face. The best Trent could do was keep it at a smirk. He took off his cowboy hat and left it next to the laptop. He walked out of the room in the opposite direction from Erica. She let out a sigh of relief, even though she never noticed that she was holding her breath. The room was empty, and all the other astronauts were in other sections of the ISS. Erica sneaked around to the “internet computer” and pulled up the video call application. She took some deep breaths as she waited for the call to go through. It felt like an eternity, but the other side eventually picked up.

On the screen was a man and a woman somewhere in their mid-sixties. They both looked at Erica with disbelief etched in their faces. Erica kept a straight face as she gave her parents a half-hearted wave.

“Erica… is that you?” her mother asked.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

Erica’s dad scrunched his eyebrows together, “Really? Why… why did you call?”

“I thought that it’d be nice. I haven’t talked to you in years.” Erica replied.

“Your room looks weird. Where are you?”

Erica let a little smile sneak through, “Mom? You know how in high school I tried out to be in Wicked? Do you remember which song they had me sing?”

“Yeah, Defying Gravity.”

Erica picked up Trent’s Cowboy hat and let it float in the air. Her parents gasped. Then, Erica tried to remember the tune to that broad way show-stopper.

“I’m defying gravity. And you can’t pull me down.” She sang. Her pitch was off, and fumbled around with the words, but it was still better than her audition. Erica’s mom was speechless, and her dad could only let out a stutter.

“You’re… you’re…”

“I’m an astronaut. Yes. Proud of me now?”

“Sweetie… of course we’re proud.” Erica’s mom said.

“We would’ve been proud of you no matter what you did. As long as you called us eventually.” Her dad added.

Erica laughed a little, “Well, I gotta go. Science calls.”

“Bye sweetie.”

“We still love you, and miss you.”

Erica gave her parents one last smile, “Good-bye.”

Then she turned off the video call. Erica sat in front of the blank screen for a while. Well, technically she floated. Which was quite fitting. She felt like a weight had fallen off of her shoulders. This must be what zero Gs really feels like. But she wasn’t given peace for long. James and Garret barged in.  

“Done!”

“Finished!”

“Everything’s unloaded!”

“Everything’s in order!”

“I swear, you two have no quiet mode.” Erica said.

“We call that mode ‘sleep’” James replied.

“But now’s not the time for sleep.” Garret said, “We can sleep when we reach the other side of the planet.”

“So what do you guys want to do? Play a game or something?” Erica asked.

A grin spread across James’ face, “I got one in mind…”

“What’s the name of the game?” Garret asked.

“Thumper!” Erica and James shouted.

“Why do we play this game?”

“To get fucked up!”

                                   


End file.
